It is well known in the art that alpha hydroxy acids are useful in the treatment of various skin maladies such as dry skin, ichthyosis, eczema, palmar keratoses, plantar keratoses, dandruff, acne, warts, herpes, pruritis, psoriasis, age spots, wrinkles and disturbed keratinization. Repeated application of topical formulations including alpha hydroxy acids, however, has undesirably resulted in mild to sometimes severe skin irritation. The cause of the skin irritation is likely attributable to a lowering of the pH of the skin. As mentioned in U.S. Pat. No. 5,091,171 to Yu et al., the upper layers of normal skin have a pH of 4.2 to 5.6 while the compositions containing alpha hydroxy acids typically have a pH of less than 3.0. Repeated topical application of such compositions can cause a decrease in the pH of the skin. Various attempts have been made to overcome this drawback of alpha hydroxy acids but such attempts largely have been unsuccessful. For instance, the alpha hydroxy acids have been reacted with organic primary, secondary or tertiary alkylamines, alkanol amines, diamines, dialkylamines, dialkanolamines, alkylalkanolamines, trialkylamines, trialkanolamines, dialkyl alkanolamines and alkyl dialkanolamines. For instance, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,234,599, 4,197,316, 4,021,572, 4,105,782 and 4,105,783. The products of such reactions, however, lose most of their therapeutic effects, probably because the penetration and distribution of the active ingredient to the target site in the skin is greatly diminished.